The first rule of holes, Boulder City Councilman Sam Weaver said, "is that when you're in one, stop digging."

"That's why we need to focus more on housing than on commercial development," Weaver said of his vision for near-term planning in Boulder. "We are a regional job center, but I don't think we need to continue blindly increasing that."

Development, he said, is not paying enough for its impacts to affordability in Boulder.

Weaver, who is wrapping up his first four-year term on the council, said his interest in issues of cost and access related to housing was a motivating factor in his decision to run again. He said he wants to "see some things through," including the implementation of the city's new Long Term Homelessness Strategy, municipalization and continued work on affordable housing.

He said he sees these and other issues with a lucidity he did not have when he first joined the council.

On growth, for example, he said, "One of the changes that has occurred for me is thinking that what we really need to do is think about housing first and think about how we can use zoning to maximize the incentives to build housing."

Education: B.S. in engineering and applied science from the California Institute of Technology

Other: Recent e-bike convert, born and raised in Knoxville, active user of city open space

He said he's not only been troubled by the nature of recent development in Boulder, but also by its pace. Outcry from some residents over both issues hasn't surprised him.

Weaver cited, for example, the "Envision East Arapahoe" program, which was scuttled after neighborhood backlash that was in part informed by fears that Arapahoe Avenue between Folsom and 75th streets would see denser, taller development, and a generally new direction for one of Boulder's quieter residential and commercial areas.

The city's approach to that program was wrong from the start, he said.

"The neighbors were freaking out and they were unhappy about it. They had reason to be unhappy," Weaver said. "In my view, this happens to a lot of planning processes: the planners focus very narrowly and the people just outside the circle they draw feel like they're being left out and they get very concerned their views aren't being entertained."

He added: "The reasons I'm bullish on sub-community planning is because I believe it gives a lot of certainty to developers and people who live in the area."

As a council member, Weaver is best known for his work leading the city's municipalization effort, which inspired his initial run for council in 2013. Weaver, who himself works in the energy sector, has consistently been the council's most outspoken and knowledgeable advocate for the creation of city-run utility separate from Xcel Energy.

He was on the city's negotiating team during settlement talks with Xcel, and maintains close ties to citizen advocates working to advance the project.

Some, including several of Weaver's fellow council candidates, have recently announced they now oppose municipalization and the proposed extension of the tax that funds it, which is also on Boulder's ballot this year. Those switchovers often have cited the fact that Xcel recently said it wants to have a statewide portfolio that's more than 55 percent renewable by 2026 — a major leap, if realized, from the roughly 30 percent figure the company can claim today.

"Their most ambitious proposal is to get to 55 percent, but we want to get to 100 percent. We need to keep our eyes on the prize," Weaver said. "This is a generational decision. This is not about the next five or 10 years. Do we as a city want to have democratic control of the electrical grid?"

In addition to municipalization, Weaver said he's also deeply interested in homelessness, a "wicked problem" on which his views have evolved in recent years.

"When I first got on council, my mental image was of transients in the civic center," he said. "That's a very narrow segment of the overall homeless population. Half of the homeless population in Boulder are families."

He's pleased with the city's new strategy to combat homelessness, though he'd like to see more permanent supportive housing units, and isn't convinced yet that the city is prepared to handle overflow sheltering on nights with severe weather.

Some of Weaver's colleagues have argued lately that others in Boulder County aren't doing enough to help the homeless. He wants to see more "conversation" on regional cooperation, moving forward.

"It'd be great if every community had some amounts of homeless services or homeless sheltering," he said. "Where do we need elsewhere in the county to construct facilities and how do we get the communities to buy in? The first step is the conversation."

If re-elected, he said he plans to raise a new policy idea at the council's next retreat: charging people who live outside of Boulder County for access to city parks and open space.

"I don't think it's unfair to think that somebody coming from Commerce City, even if they're low income," should pay, Weaver said. "If they're having an impact which is degrading our open space, they should pay for that impact."

But open space crowding and maintenance are just symptoms of growth, both in the city and region. And Weaver believes the city should be working more toward a "measured, responsible" approach to that trend.

"We are going to grow," he said. "The question is how do we make that growth serve Boulder's residents and workers best?"

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